Dear Portfolio Committee on Defense and Military Veterans,

I Celeste Bazier, reside in Johannesburg and originally from Cape Town, I am a spouse of a deceased military veteran (8472065) who died in 2019. I am deeply grieved by the lack of assistance, as our Family has lost a Father Family anchor of the home. There are many other's in my situation or going through similar. For the past 3 years, I have constant service delivery issues, with department of military veterans not paying my daughters approved bursary, apparently there is a budget in general approved. We are registered on the database as dependents for all services. We have senior members from DMV not responding to emails. My daughter who is 14 years, she cannot attend normal schooling and we depend heavily on the funding for an education bursary, but yet we cannot seem to have our voice be heard. It's February 2025 and nobody cares that she cannot attend to school due to non payment. My husband's pension he should qualify for, spouses do not and was not included when parliament approved the pension for veterans, now a further waiting period is required to pass a spousal payment into law, when the act already exists. GPAA, needs to pay us but they cannot due to parliament approval waiting period according to Kabelo Jonathan. We need to rely on housing, we filled out 3 applications already, Mr. Masala took it in specifically and didn't care after. I am emailing the business empowerment fund, as I am trying to start a business to assist veterans in providing business coaching assistance, this will speed up a lot of unemployment & business services, DMV is unable to offer, to date I have no avenue email or contact, but it seems like it is only for a specific race. This type of negligence is going to cost the government for not taking care of the very people who fought for them. Please tell me, What Public representative can help me? Where are all the competent people and contacts who can execute a simple process? Mr. Masala has one email for a database of 18000 people, how on earth can this man cope, not to mention Gauteng. The ratio is impossible and also set up for failure to not service people correctly. We do not care about qualified people, we care about government servants who care enough to do the job, not sit in comfort all day!

The issues above are:
Housing application, filled in by Mr Masala, he said wait for an sms when I was homeless in 2022. Did I receive an sms NO, is my application acknowledged, NO.
Education Bursary, nobody responded since 2023, 2024.
Compensation, Special Pension or Pension since 2023 registered received a letter, I am still waiting, how does a widow Feed her family with no support from anyone??? This system has become a joke to the veteran community and is so disrespectful of the battles they had to endure.

ALL the people I have emailed are below, who choose not to reply to my matter.
Mantsatsi.Ramosana@dod.mil.za,
David.Rampedi@dmv.gov.zap,
presidentrsa@presidency.gov.za,
Mduduzi@presidency.gov.za,
mangaliso.khonza@dod.mil.za,
leader@da.org.za
cc: Phumeza Qaqa <Phumeza.Qaqa@dmv.gov.za>,
Moyahabo Ngoakomonye <Moyahabo.Ngoakomonye@dmv.gov.za>,
Thabang Mbemba <Thabang.Mbemba@dmv.gov.za>,

Kind Regards
Celeste Bazier